What to eat, where to eat it

That little voice that gets you into trouble, the one that says "go ahead, how bad can it be?" before you do something truly stupid, also nags. Brush your teeth, make your bed, tie your shoelaces, eat your vegetables. It's not always easy advice to follow when you're on the road.

Businessmen in suits and cellphones allow themselves to be seated at the classic Brasserie Balzar one Paris lunchtime. Tourists wearing pearls sit alongside a pair of girlfriends out shopping. Older gents in ties with much younger, beautiful women. The singles remain out on the terrace eating their croque-monsieurs, but inside it's the full meal deal: appetizer (assiette de crudités), plat du jour (sautéed calf's liver), dessert (wild strawberries that taste like lavender), coffee. Hit and miss at other brasseries. Scrappy infield single at Lipp, where the leeks vinaigrette come topped with chopped hardboiled eggs and parsley (but, alas, not quite free of grit). At Polidor, a $5 plate of crudites wear its four-color modesty (carrots, beets, cucumbers, red cabbage) proudly. But the venerable Procope serves a plate of vegetables "noodles" (fennel and celery run through the mandoline) topped with smoked salmon, that was never formally introduced to the vinaigrette. What's more, the veal scallop is too thick and there's a lemon seed stuck to the carafe of sauvignon blanc. The inside of the carafe, mind you. Hard, the life of the foreign traveler.